It has come to light that Wal-Mart has suffered a breach in its staff data system due to a former employee leaving their job with confidential records. The information is said to refer to 48,000 members of staff in the state of Illinois, America. Security of information has also been a source of several news stories here in the UK as govermnment ministers have accidentally leaked information through mishaps. The breach occurred in mid-2007 and has only just emerged in the media. The language of the documents exposed was generalised, projected and chain-wide, begging the question: how many people’s personal security has been compromised by this? Considering the chain employs 1.8 million members of staff, this is a large loss of personal information which may take the form of private co-ordinates, bank account details for payrolls, tax codes and details, etc.

The breach is feared to be more than localised and is being looked into by senior staff.